In celebration of the release of Hedda on Prime Video, Tessa Thompson joined Perri Nemiroff for a Collider Ladies Night conversation!

During their chat, Thompson revisits working on Veronica Mars with Kristen Bell and discusses how Justin Simien's Dear White People was a personal acting game-changer. She also digs into the reality of joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and celebrates her longstanding collaboration with Hedda director, Nia DaCosta.

Hear about all of that and so much more in this interview!

Here's the official synopsis for HEDDA: "A provocative reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, Hedda follows enigmatic newlywed Hedda (Tessa Thompson), who is outwardly composed but hiding a simmering discontent that threatens to explode when the brilliant and charismatic Eileen Lovberg (Nina Hoss) reenters her life. Over the course of a raucous party, the high and low of society endure the consequences of this dangerous and unknowable woman yearning for a past love. What ensues is a ruthless game of manipulation, where lust, jealousy, and betrayal collide. Written and directed by Nia DaCosta, Hedda is a daring exploration of power, desire, and a woman’s refusal to be confined."

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Lizze Broadway was an instant high-priority guest for Collider Ladies Night when Gen V wrapped its Season 1 run back in November 2023. Two years later, nothing has changed. Yet again, in Season 2, Broadway is a standout in an ensemble that’s filled with top-tier actors. Not only is Broadway a consistent scene-stealer courtesy of pitch-perfect line delivery and spot-on comedic timing, but her character’s growth as a leader has proven to be one of the most inspiring storylines of the season. It’s an arc that made Emma an especially powerful anchor for the show — the character most responsible for bringing everyone together.

With the Gen V Season 2 finale now available to stream on Prime Video, Broadway returned to the Collider Ladies Night studio to talk all things Emma Meyers. She went into detail on how heavily the late Chance Perdomo and his Gen V character, Andre Anderson, influenced Emma’s Season 2 arc, and also Broadway’s own personal journey as an actor. She also put the spotlight on Emma’s new connections this season, namely her team-up with Sean Patrick Thomas as Andre’s father, Polarity, and her budding friendship Jessica Clement’s Harper.

Enjoy all of that and more in this Gen V edition of Collider Ladies Night!

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D’Arcy Carden is the best kind of busy right now. She just wrapped her run on the Emmy award winning series The Handmaid’s Tale where she managed to swoop in during the show’s sixth and final season and quickly establish herself as a fan favorite character. Right now she’s in production on a highly anticipated and star studded Peacock series based on Elin Hilderbrand’s novel, Five Star Weekend. Carden stars in that one alongside Jennifer Garner, Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny and Gemma Chan. 

Carden also makes a mark on the indie cinema space this year courtesy of Seth Worley’s phenomenal feature directorial debut, Sketch. The movie utilizes a downright brilliant concept to explore a family’s grief. Jack (Kue Lawrence) and Amber (Bianca Belle) recently lost their mother, and they’re coping with it in two totally different ways, as is their father, Taylor, played by Tony Hale. While Jack and Taylor are bottling it all up, Amber is expressing herself with art — or, more specifically, by drawing violent monsters in her notebook. One day, that notebook falls in a pond. But, it’s not any old pond. This pond has magical powers, and it brings her sketches to life, and those sketches go on to terrorize her town.

Carden enters as Liz, Jack and Amber’s real estate agent aunt. Initially, she’s wholly focused on helping Taylor sell their home but soon comes to realize that the fight against Amber’s drawings is very real, and she’s going to have to fight creatures made of marker, crayon, glitter, and more alongside her brother.

Sketch is a top tier original film. Not only is the story idea genius, but even as a first time feature filmmaker, Worley’s got the skillset necessary to expertly bring the ambitious concept to screen on an independent film budget.

With Sketch now available to rent on digital platforms, Carden visited the Collider Ladies Night studio to discuss her experience making the film, and to look back on unforgettable career milestones like scoring her role in The Good Place, which earned her an Emmy nomination, and her time working on Prime Video’s gone-too-soon A League of Their Own.

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I’ve been saying this for quite some time now; Rosa Salazar is an epic force in this industry. Not only is she brimming with undeniable screen presence, but she’s also amassed a filmography packed with uniquely ambitious projects.

After getting her start with American Horror Story and Parenthood, Salazar jumped into two of the most popular young adult film franchises of the 2010s with supporting roles in The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and Insurgent. Those projects teed her up nicely to headline her very own studio action film, Alita: Battle Angel. In the series realm, Salazar also starred in two especially unforgettable streaming shows, the Prime Video animated series Undone, and Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor. The combination of all of those titles and then some highlights Salazar’s endless range, and having such range came in handy big time on her latest project, Prime Video’s Play Dirty.

The Shane Black-directed action comedy is based on the “Parker” book series by Donald E. Westlake. Mark Wahlberg steps in as Parker, a skilled thief who assembles a team to pull off a seemingly impossible heist. That team includes Salazar’s Zen, an invaluable member of the crew, but also one you’re going to want to keep an eye on.

While on Collider Ladies Night, Salazar deemed the project a no-brainer to take on for two reasons. One, Shane Black. The other? “Everything I've done in my career led me to this.” Hear all about it in this interview!

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Miranda Cosgrove began her journey in film and television as a Nickelodeon mainstay, and now she's busy carving out a similar space for herself over at Netflix as she celebrates the release of her second romantic comedy for the streamer. Just last year she starred in Mother of the Bride opposite Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, and Chad Michael Murray, and now she headlines and executive produces The Wrong Paris.

In the film, Cosgrove plays Dawn, a young woman eager to study art in Paris, France. While she does manage to get into a prestigious program there, she can't quite afford it. That's where her reality TV-loving sister swoops in. Turns out, one of her favorite shows is doing a season set in Paris, so all Dawn has to do is get on the show, get eliminated fast, and then she's free to study. Trouble is, after Dawn is indeed selected as a contestant, the producers reveal that the season will actually take place in Paris ... Texas.

With The Wrong Paris now available to watch on Netflix, Cosgrove visited the Collider Ladies Night studio for a chat about making the movie, and her journey to the streamer. While we did dig into her time on Drake & Josh and iCarly, Cosgrove also made a point to emphasize what a wonderful time she had on the set of her very first feature film. That movie? The 2003 smash hit, School of Rock starring Jack Black. After that, she discusses her experience serving as an executive producer on the iCarly revival, and shares memories from the set of The Wrong Paris.

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Career ups and downs are inevitable. Arden Cho just took 20 years’ worth of acting highs and lows, funneled them all into a powerhouse voice performance, and churned out one of the very best cinematic characters of 2025, a Netflix character who well-aligns with her own personal creative goals as an actor and is also proving to be a character who can inspire anyone.

Cho leads the voice cast of one of the biggest hits of 2025, and one of the greatest pop culture sensations of recent years, Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters. Cho does the speaking voice while Ejae delivers the incredible vocals for Rumi, one of three members of the K-pop group Huntr/x. While the world sees a trio delivering catchy hit after hit, what the average person doesn’t know is that Huntr/x’s music also charges the Honmoon, a magical barrier that keeps demons from the human world. When a demonic K-pop boy band called the Saja Boys enter the picture, they threaten Huntr/x’s ability to remain at the top of the charts and turn the Honmoon gold. The situation also runs the risk of exposing Rumi’s greatest secret.

With KPop Demon Hunters continuing to dominate the Netflix charts, striking gold at the box office with wildly popular sing-along screenings, and starting to build some serious awards season buzz, Cho swung by the Collider Ladies Night studio for a chat about her journey to the film, a journey that included a number of experiences that had Cho consider leaving the industry.

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I had my first chat with Jane Levy in March 2013. Twelve years and a slew of interviews later, she finally joins me in-studio for a Collider Ladies Night conversation in celebration of one of my favorite performances she’s ever delivered, playing Tammy opposite David Strathairn in Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer.

As many well know, I went quite hard covering 2013’s Evil Dead and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. I adore those projects and love a considerable amount of the work that Levy’s delivered over the years. Tammy in A Little Prayer, however, is different. As Levy explained, “I found her to be extraordinarily brave, like heroically brave, but also so kind.” Levy also joked the character doesn’t have the “acerbic scary side” many of her other characters do. But it’s more than that. Tammy is impossibly thoughtful and loving. She’s the type of big screen character who’ll leave you thinking, “I wish I had more people like Tammy in my life,” or, “I wish I was more like her.” In fact, Levy herself even noted, “I thought, ‘I want to be more like Tammy.’ And I actually still think that.”

A Little Prayer puts the spotlight on the next-level special bond between a man and his daughter-in-law, Strathairn’s Bill and Levy’s Tammy. Bill is a pillar of his community, a quietly authoritative veteran who leads his family and his business with kindness and warmth. However, after bringing his son David (Will Pullen) into that business, Bill questions David’s ability to keep himself afloat at the office, and also if he’s remained faithful to Tammy.

With A Little Prayer now playing in select theaters, Levy swung by the studio to discuss the film's journey from Sundance 2023 to its 2025 theatrical release. She also looked back on working on Suburgatory, discussed the Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist cancellation, and teased her upcoming film with Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams, Whalefall.

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Margaret Qualley is a true one-of-a-kind force in film and television. Her work is always appointment viewing because her filmography is brimming with variety and unique characters that challenge her to swing big in new ways. From The Leftovers and The Nice Guys to The Substance and Honey Don’t, those roles don’t work unless they’re filled with an actor willing to pour every ounce of themself into bringing them to life on screen, and that right there is a consistent truth of Qualley’s work.

In her latest, Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-Away Dolls follow-up film, Honey Don’t, Qualley headlines as the title character. Honey is a private investigator in Bakersfield, California who gets caught up in a series of deaths tied to a mysterious church. With the help of her assistant (Gabby Beans), Honey’s attempt to crack the case puts her in Reverend Drew Devlin’s (Chris Evans) orbit and overlaps with her budding relationship with Aubrey Plaza’s MG, and her role as a supportive sister and aunt to Kristen Connolly and Talia Ryder’s characters respectively.

With Honey Don’t now playing in theaters nationwide, Qualley joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat during which we revisited her days as a dancer, including what prompted the switch to focus on acting. She also looks back on memorable lessons learned making The Leftovers and The Nice Guys, considers how working on The Substance changed her, and talked about her top-tier scene partners in Honey Don’t.

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Back in April 2024, I was lucky enough to visit the set of Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth in Thailand where I played detective with stars Samuel Blenkin and Alex Lawther. At the start of our three-day visit, we knew little about where Hawley and co. were taking the iconic franchise, so my one-on-one chats with Blenkin and Lawther were all about trying to figure out who their characters are, how they fit into this situation, and what they want out of it. A little over a year later, we reunited at San Diego Comic-Con for another chat where the duo built upon what we discussed in Bangkok and dug into some of what we see unfold in the first three episodes of the series.

Alien: Earth takes place in the year 2120, two years before the events of the first film. Blenkin’s Boy Kavalier created one of the five companies that run the planet, Prodigy Corporation. Considered a “boy genius,” Boy K created the program that gives us Wendy, Sydney Chandler’s character, the first synthetic to be infused with human consciousness. Her brother, Lawther’s Hermit, has no idea she’s undergone such a procedure, so when the two reunite and he realizes who she is, it’s a mighty complex situation, to say the least.

With the first three episodes of Alien: Earth now available to watch, it’s time to release my conversation with Blenkin and Lawther filmed at SDCC in FX’s podcast studio created in partnership with Press Play: Creatives and At Will Media. In true Collider Forces fashion, we carved out time to discuss their journeys on the stage and screen, and pivotal experiences of honing their crafts as actors, and then veered into Alien: Earth territory where Blenkin and Lawther dug into key scene partners, character motivations, and deleted scenes.  

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Few actors kick off their careers with productions as big as the opportunities Hermione Corfield secured early on. One of her first feature film credits is Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in which she shares a key scene with Tom Cruise, and soon after came xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi. After that, it was the indie crime thriller Rust Creek which earned Corfield a couple of film festivals honors, and then it was the movie that quite firmly solidified her as a must-follow actor for yours truly, the eco-horror movie Sea Fever in which she stars opposite Connie Nielsen and Dougray Scott. Ever since our TIFF 2019 chat for that film, Corfield’s been a prime target for Collider Ladies Night and now, with the debut of the Outlander prequel series, Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the time has finally come.

The new Starz show puts the spotlight on Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and Claire Beauchamp’s (Caitríona Balfe) parents. For Jamie, it’s Jamie Roy’s Brian Fraser and Harriet Slater’s Ellen MacKenzie, and Claire's parents, Henry Beauchamp and Julia Moriston, are played by Jeremy Irvine and Corfield. Whereas Brian and Ellen’s romance starts and remains in the same time period, Henry and Julia experience a significant upheaval when, similar to their daughter, they travel from 1917 to 1714, crossing paths with Brian and Ellen.

Soon after a brief chat with Corfield and much of the main ensemble at San Diego Comic-Con, Corfield swung by the Collider Ladies Night studio for an extended conversation about the first two episodes of Season 1, and to offer up a few teases of what’s to come. 

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If you’re a fan of genre, there was no better place to be at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 than in Ballroom 20 on Thursday night for the Collider Ladies Night After Dark panel. Ladies Night joined forces with the IFC Entertainment Group to celebrate two titles gearing up for their Shudder debut, and to unveil first looks at three upcoming theatrical releases. Even better? It all happened with five big-screen powerhouses - Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Alexandra Shipp, Katie Douglas and Hassie Harrison.

In true Collider Ladies Night fashion, the group began by pinpointing pivotal early career experiences that helped pave the way to their latest projects. After that, Douglas and Harrison revisited their time on the Clown in a Cornfield and Dangerous Animals sets, respectively, and then Keen, Nélisse and Shipp debuted the very first footage for their upcoming films.

For Keen and Nélisse, that meant celebrating the world premiere of the teaser trailer for their new horror film, Whistle. Directed by Corin Hardy, Whistle puts the focus on a group of friends who happen upon an ancient Aztec death whistle. When someone blows the whistle or hears its sound, the countdown begins. Their future deaths start coming for them.

From there, Shipp put the spotlight on Violent Ends, a revenge thriller that poses the question, “If you lost the most dear thing to you, what the fuck would you do to the people who took it from you?” Collider Ladies Night After Dark had the privilege of showing off one of Shipp’s most breathtaking moments in the movie before turning towards another upcoming release, Forbidden Fruits. In that one, Shipp stars opposite Lili Reinhardt, Victoria Pedretti and Lola Tung as a group of women who “work at a Free People-esque mall shop,” and also practice witchcraft. 

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This year we had the pleasure of hosting two Collider Ladies Night panels at San Diego Comic-Con. The first leaned heavily into the horror genre by putting the spotlight on Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Alexandra Shipp, Katie Douglas, Hassie Harrison and their upcoming IFC and Shudder titles. Then, the next night, I had the great honor of taking the stage with Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Danielle Pinnock and Marissa Bode to celebrate Peacemaker, The Bad Guys 2, Ghosts and Wicked.

Every edition of Collider Ladies Night demands a significant amount of prep work, including these live versions of the show. But, ultimately, the success of a Ladies Night interview comes down to the guests, and with this group, we truly hit the jackpot. Bode, Pinnock, Holland and Brooks all took the stage with a sky-high passion for their current projects, a deep respect for what it took to hit this point in their careers, and an eagerness to celebrate one another.

During the panel, Holland recalled first moving to Hollywood as a teenager and her ongoing journey of finding a sense of belonging, Pinnock looked back at her time “scamming” and the day she found out she booked her first series regular role, Brooks discussed why her time at Juilliard teed her up for great success in the superhero genre, and Bode discussed making her feature debut with one of the biggest hits of 2024, Wicked.

After that, all four took a moment to look forward to all the good on the horizon - specifically Peacemaker Season 2, Ghosts Season 5 and Wicked: For Good.

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Chase Sui Wonders has already proven herself a scene-stealing force via titles like Generation and Bodies Bodies Bodies, but 2025 is solidifying her as an undeniable star. In March, she debuted The Studio, an Apple TV+ series in which she stars opposite powerhouses Seth Rogen, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz and Kathryn Hahn. Mere days after that show scored a whopping 23 Emmy nominations, Wonders headlines one of the most anticipated movies of the year - the new I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Similar to the 1997 original, on July 4, Wonders’ Ava and her group of friends go for a drive and stop on the side of the road to watch the fireworks. When one walks into the road, an approaching car swerves to avoid hitting him and veers off the edge of the cliff. Rather than report the incident, the group attempts to sweep it under the rug. And they’re confident they’ve done it until they all regroup next year and come to learn that they’re being hunted by a killer who claims, “I know what you did last summer.”

With I Know What You Did Last Summer now playing in theaters nationwide, Wonders joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat to retrace her steps to the film. She looks back on her time studying at Harvard and how booking the role of Riley on HBO Max’s Generation wound up being a career game-changer. She also discusses her directing ambitions and what she took from watching Rogen wear multiple hats on the set of The Studio, and then breaks down all the biggest moments of I Know What You Did Last Summer, including sharing scenes with franchise icons Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., and the movie’s third act twists.

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If you frequent Collider Ladies Night, you’re well aware that I’m a big proponent of filmmaking families — frequent collaborators who stick together and also add new additions to the family every step of the way. Mike Flanagan’s “Flanafamily” is a big one, and it’s a topic that keeps popping up with Molly Gordon, who’s recently found great success collaborating with close friends on films like Theater Camp and Oh, Hi. Yet another top-tier filmmaking family? The one James Gunn started and continues to thrive with, and that family has a member you’re going to be seeing a whole of in the coming weeks, months and years. It’s Mikaela Hoover.

In celebration of the release of Superman, in which Hoover plays Daily Planet gossip columnist Cat Grant, she took the time to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio and recap her journey to joining three of the biggest franchises of all time - DC, Marvel and, most recently, One Piece. It’s a list of accomplishments that certainly can be traced back to Hoover’s natural talent, but as we often discuss on Ladies Night, in film and television, finding someone who sees you and what you’re capable of can be essential. Hoover found that in Gunn.

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You don’t get a bigger breakout opportunity than a show like The Pitt. Taylor Dearden’s already made a big impression in the gone-too-soon MTV series Sweet/Vicious and the second season of American Vandal, but The Pitt just sent her star soaring in a wholly different way.

The Pitt is undeniably (and deservedly) one of the most celebrated new shows of the year and Dearden’s performance has proven to be an especially big standout among an ensemble full of aces. She plays Dr. Mel King, a second-year resident about to begin her very first day at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital's emergency room, aka, The Pitt. While there are nerves at the start of the shift, Mel’s an extremely skilled doctor who excels under pressure and also has the emotional capacity to connect with patients in ways others can’t.

With the show on the cusp of what could be an extremely successful Emmy season, Dearden carved out some time on a day off from filming Season 2 to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio and run through her experience playing Mel and adapting to The Pitt’s one-of-a-kind filming schedule. We also took the time to zero in on a few key scenes from Season 1, one of which has become an especially beloved fan-favorite — the “Savage” scene.

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As though starring in a new Jurassic World movie isn’t a big enough deal, Luna Blaise also boasts an especially exciting franchise achievement. She’s right smack in the middle of one of the most iconic set pieces from Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel, a set piece that was famously cut from Steven Spielberg’s original film.

In Jurassic World Rebirth, Blaise plays Teresa Delgado. Just before starting her first year at college, Teresa takes a boat trip with her father (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), her little sister (Audrina Miranda), and her boyfriend (David Iacono). Little do they know, they’re sailing through Mosasaurs territory. Fortunately, Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett and her team swoop in to save them, but the Mosasaurs sets its sights on their boat instead and the entire group winds up stranded on Ile Saint-Hubert, an island that InGen once used to run a secret R&D facility.

While trying to make their way to a rumored village on the island, Teresa and her family are left with no choice but to steal an inflatable raft right out from under a sleeping T-Rex’s nose and ride it down river to get them closer to this supposed safe haven.

With Jurassic World Rebirth now playing in theaters nationwide, Blaise joined me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to revisit her journey to the franchise, a journey that included two hit TV shows - Fresh Off the Boat and Manifest. She also recapped her Jurassic World audition, revealed her character’s backstory, explained why she thinks of Garcia-Rulfo and Iacono as family, and, of course, walked me through exactly what it was like to film that river raft scene.

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Allison Williams’ filmography is loaded with variety, but it’s also packed with examples of how one project can influence another — even if they’re in entirely different genres. There’s the hit HBO comedy-drama series Girls, which first sent Williams’ star skyrocketing. As that show wound down, Williams headlined a feature film for the very first time, Jordan Peele’s Academy Award-winning horror movie Get Out. Williams continued to enjoy great success in the genre, but wound up exploring an entirely different corner of it with the horror-comedy M3GAN. Now, M3GAN 2.0 let’s her do just that yet again as the horror-comedy concept becomes a horror-comedy-action film.

M3GAN 2.0 picks up about two years after the events of the original film. Since Gemma’s (Williams) A.I. creation went on a murderous rampage, she’s put her focus on advocating for government oversight of artificial intelligence. However, when Gemma discovers that the M3gan tech wasn’t entirely destroyed and was used to create a military-grade weapon called Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno), she’s left with no choice but to resurrect and team up with M3gan to stop Amelia from growing too far beyond the control of her human creators.

With M3GAN 2.0 now playing in theaters nationwide, Williams joined me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to retrace her journey in film and television thus far, and to dig into how her craft in front of and behind the lens has evolved.

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Katie Douglas is in the midst of a banner year. She just headlined Eli Craig’s adaptation of the Adam Cesar novel, Clown in a Cornfield, and the slasher movie broke records when it hit theaters. The movie scored IFC Entertainment Group its biggest opening weekend ever. A mere month later, Douglas had another title that posted huge numbers. Upon release, Ginny & Georgia Season 3 became the most-watched TV title on Netflix with a whopping 17.6 million views. In celebration of all that success, Douglas visited the Collider Ladies Night studio to revisit how she paved her way to Clown in a Cornfield and Ginny & Georgia, and to dig especially deep into the hit Netflix series’ third season, which includes quite a few game-changing moments for her character, Abby.

In Ginny & Georgia Season 3, Brianne Howey’s Georgia is trying to avoid becoming a convicted “Mayoress Murderess.” While Abby stands firmly by Ginny’s (Antonia Gentry) side as she powers through her mom’s trial, Abby must navigate a multitude of personal challenges of her own, challenges that undoubtedly will reshape her priorities and who she is moving forward.

During our conversation, Douglas mentioned using journaling to tackle her work as an actor, so I opted to ask how her journaling as Abby has evolved from Season 1 to Season 3. As Douglas explained, in Season 1, she had a “teenage edge to her.” Douglas continued, “It was very surface-level. She was kind of catty and loved her friends, but in a way that it’s easier for her to tease than to be affectionate.” In Season 3, however, her journaling is far more fleshed out because “she's aware that she needs help.” Douglas credits Abby’s very first experience going on a romantic journey with making feelings a bit easier for her. “I was trying to exercise what that would feel like for somebody who has only ever used intimacy in a way that is performative, or kind of a form of self-harm, just what that would look like on paper and the slow burn and the build-up of coming to terms with the fact that you're learning how to love and you're learning who you love, and you are only a teenager.”

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[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of We Were Liars, "My Friends Are Lying in the Sun.”]

After an epic run playing Caroline Forbes on The Vampire Diaries, appearing in over 170 episodes, Candice King has a brand new series regular role. She’s playing Bess Sinclair in Prime Video’s adaptation of E. Lockhart’s hit young-adult novel, We Were Liars.

Emily Alyn Lind leads the series as Cadence Sinclair, a teenager who spends her summers on her grandfather’s (David Morse) private island with her family, including her mother, Penny (Caitlin Fitzgerald), and her two aunts, Carrie (Mamie Gummer) and King’s character, Bess. The Sinclair family is considered American royalty, but when a tragedy strikes on Beechwood Island, their legacy and lives are totally upended.

With We Were Liars now available to stream in full on Prime Video, King took the time to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio to revisit her journey to the show. She looked back on making the pivot from music to acting, finding confidence in her craft on the set of The Vampire Diaries, and making her way through Bess’ mighty complex storyline in Season 1 of We Were Liars.

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An actor is very fortunate to have a multi-season run on a series. An actor is even more fortunate to get to see a series through to its natural conclusion. Lauren Cohan went above and beyond that with her Walking Dead journey. Not only did she play Maggie in over 100 episodes of the main series, but then she got to go on to headline a spin-off series opposite Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and that spin-off series earned her her very first executive producing credit and now her very first directing credit as well. She’s a key component of one of the biggest television empires ever created, and she’s making the most of the opportunities that franchise affords her - opportunities she’s earned.

The Walking Dead: Dead City picks up a number of years after the events of the main series. When Hershel (Logan Kim) is kidnapped by the Croat (Željko Ivanek) and taken to Manhattan, Maggie must turn to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) for help. While Maggie does manage to make it off the island with Hershel, Negan is pressured to remain by The Dama (Lisa Emery). Season 2 kicks off about a year later with the New Babylon Federation conscripting the residents of The Bricks to head into Manhattan for an expeditionary mission tied to their agenda to ultimately retake it. Maggie agrees to go, but only if no one else from her community is forced to do the same. So back to Manhattan she goes, along with a stubborn Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) and a stowaway Hershel.

After powering through five episodes of Season 2 as an executive producer and playing Maggie trying to survive yet another perilous mission in the Big Apple, the time has some for Cohan to put on yet another hat. With the release of Season 2, Episode 6, “Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days,” she is officially a director. In celebration of the milestone achievement, Cohan joined me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to discuss her early days on The Walking Dead, her experience advocating for herself when her initial series regular contract concluded, how she approached stepping into the executive producer role with Dead City, and how she felt about taking on an extremely ambitious episode for her very first venture as a director. 

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